Career

McGraw graduated in 1975 from Midwestern State University with a Bachelor of Artsdegree in psychology. He went on to earn a master’s degree in experimental psychology in 1976, and a Ph.D in clinical psychology in 1979 at the University of North Texas,[6] where his dissertation was titled “Rheumatoid Arthritis: A Psychological Intervention.” After run-ins with several faculty members,[7] McGraw was guided through the doctoral program by Frank Lawlis, Ph.D., who later became the primary contributing psychologist for the Dr. Phil television show.[8]
McGraw owned a construction business with his brother-in-law while completing his internship for his Ph.D.
After obtaining his Ph.D., McGraw joined his father, Dr. Joe McGraw, in Wichita Falls, Texas, where the elder McGraw had established his private psychology practice.[9]
In 1983, McGraw and his father joined Thelma Box, a successful Texas businesswoman, in presenting “Pathways” seminars, “an experience-based training which allows individuals to achieve and create their own results.”[10] Critics claim that many of the “phrases and the terminology and the quaint sayings” used by McGraw on the Oprah and Dr. Phil shows were coined by Box and presented by McGraw in this seminar. McGraw admits that some of the material from Life Strategies, his first best-seller, is taken directly from the Pathways seminar. However, he has never mentioned Thelma Box or her contributions to his success in any of his books or TV shows.[7] Eight years after joining Box, McGraw signed an agreement for the sale of his Pathways seminar stock for $325,000 without notifying either his father or Thelma Box of the impending sale. “There was a feeling of betrayal because Phil had compromised the integrity of the program. The accusation is that he reduced Box’s asset value in the corporation by selling behind her back.”[7] Box founded her own seminars entitled “Choices.”[11] It has been reported that McGraw and his father seldom speak.[7]

Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists

The Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists determined on October 21, 1988 that McGraw had hired a former patient for “part-time temporary employment”.[12] Specifically the Board cited “a possible failure to provide proper separation between termination of therapy and the initiation of employment”[13] and issued a letter of reprimand and imposed administrative penalties.[14] The Board also investigated claims made by the patient of inappropriate contact initiated by McGraw, but the “Findings of Fact” document issued by the Board on October 21, 1988, at the end of its investigation, includes no reference to any physical contact of any kind. It specifically identified the “the therapeutic and business relationships” as constituting McGraw’s sole issue with the Board.[14] McGraw fulfilled all terms of the Board’s requirements, and the Board closed its complaint file in June, 1990.[15]
In 1990, McGraw joined lawyer Gary Dobbs in co-founding Courtroom Sciences Inc. (CSI), a trial consulting firm through which McGraw later came into contact with Oprah Winfrey.[16] Eventually, CSI became a profitable enterprise, advising Fortune 500 companies and injured plaintiffs alike in achieving settlements. McGraw is no longer an officer or director of the company.[16]
After starting CSI, McGraw ceased the practice of psychology. He maintained his license current and in good standing until he elected to retire it 15 years later in 2006.[17] Appearing on the Today Show in January 2008, McGraw said that he has made it “very clear” that his current work does not involve the practice of psychology. He also said that he had “retired from psychology”.[18] According to the Today Show, the California Board of Psychology determined in 2002 that he did not require a license because his show involves “entertainment” rather than psychology.[18]

Oprah Winfrey and the Dr. Phil show

In 1995, Oprah Winfrey hired McGraw’s legal consulting firm CSI to prepare her for the Amarillo Texas beef trial. Winfrey was so impressed with McGraw that she thanked him for her victory in that case, which ended in 1998. Soon after, she invited him to appear on her show. His appearance proved so successful that he began appearing weekly as a “Relationship and Life Strategy Expert” on Tuesdays starting in April 1998.
The next year, McGraw published his first best-selling book, Life Strategies, some of which was taken from the “Pathways” seminar.[7] In the next four years, McGraw published three additional best-selling relationship books, along with workbooks to complement them.
As of September 2002, McGraw formed Peteski Productions[19] and launched his own syndicated daily television show, Dr. Phil, produced by Winfrey’s Harpo Studios. The format is an advice show, where he tackles a different topic on each show, offering advice for his guests’ troubles.

Weight loss products

In 2003, McGraw entered the weight-loss business, selling shakes, energy bars, and supplements. These products were promoted on his show with his sisters Deana and Brenda and nephew Tony among the featured testimonials on the show.[20] These products’ labels, which carried the brand name “Shape It Up, Woo, Woo!”, stated: “These products contain scientifically researched levels of ingredients that can help you change your behavior to take control of your weight.” This met with swift criticism from various sources,[2] accusing McGraw (a clinical psychologist, and not a physician) of lacking the expertise to recommend weight-loss products. Facing a Federal Trade Commission investigation into Shape Up’s claims, McGraw pulled his supplements off the market in March 2004, and the FTC dropped its probe. In October 2005, several people who used McGraw’s products declared an intent to file a class-action lawsuit against him, claiming that although the supplements cost $120 per month they did not stimulate weight loss.[21] McGraw settled the suit in September 2006 for $10.5 million.[22] Some of the settlement ($6 million) may be paid to the plaintiffs in the form of Amway (Quixtar) brand Nutrilite vitamins.[23]

The Making of Dr. Phil unauthorized biography (2003)

The Making of Dr. Phil is a biography by Sophia Dembling, a reporter from the Dallas Morning News, and Lisa Gutierrez, a reporter from The Kansas City Star.[3] The book probed McGraw’s history, with interviews of his childhood friends and former classmates. The book reported that McGraw allegedly used unethical business practices in a gym business early in his career, that he was allegedly abusive to his first wife, and was also allegedly abusive to his staff, while noting that he overcame adversity through setting goals and was persistent in achieving success. The book received no promotional help from McGraw or his associates.[24]
In 2005, McGraw published another best-selling book, Family First, along with a workbook. He also signed a five-year extension of his syndication deal with his show’s distributors, King World Productions, Inc. The deal will pay McGraw $15 million a year[25] and keep the show in production through the 2013–2014 television season.[26]

Spin-off shows

Also in 2005, McGraw’s son Jay’s television show Renovate My Family (a clone of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) was canceled at the start of its second season following a renovated family’s lawsuit.[27][28] Jay McGraw and Dr. Phil then formed Stage 29 Productions.[29] A week later, McGraw and son announced a new show called Moochers (a clone of ABC’s Kicked Out);[30] however, the show was canceled before any episodes aired. McGraw also released another book, Love Smart, which did not achieve the success of his previous bestsellers.
In 2006, the Dr. Phil House (a clone of CBS’s Big Brother) began airing as part of the Dr. Phil television show. Following a protest by neighbors, the house in Los Angeles was shut down, and production resumed on a sound stage in a studio back lot.[31] McGraw reached the number 22 spot on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list, with income of $45 million.[32]
Another Stage 29 show, Decision House (a remix of the Dr. Phil House) aired from September through November, 2007 but was canceled due to poor reviews and dismal ratings.[33] Ratings for the Dr. Phil show in 2007 began to slide. In May, viewership was close to 7 million people.[34] However, by year’s end, viewership was about 5.5 million people (#10 for syndicated TV shows, and just under Everybody Loves Raymond, Family Guy and CSI: Miami).[35] By August 2008, viewership slipped to just over 4 million people.[36] Two weeks later, the show slipped beneath the Nielsen top 12 syndicated TV shows, and has yet to resurface.[37] McGraw’s income fell by 1/3 to $30 million, and he dropped to the number 30 spot on the Forbes Celebrity 100 list.[38]
Late in 2007, McGraw began promoting his 2008 Dr. Phil Show extension, The Doctors.[39] The show is hosted by television personality and ER physician Dr. Travis Stork (The Bachelor). Other experts scheduled to appear include various personalities who have appeared on the Dr. Phil show over the years, such as Dr. Lisa Masterson, an obstetrician/gynecologist; Dr. Andrew Ordon, a plastic surgeon; and Dr. Jim Sears, a pediatrician.[40] Masterson, Ordon, and Sears appeared on the Dr. Phil show during the 2007–08 season so that McGraw could instruct them on “how to give articulate medical advice while being scrutinized by a studio audience in Los Angeles.” Jay McGraw (Dr. Phil’s eldest son) is executive producer of the show. The Doctors debuted on September 8, 2008, and as of November 10, 2008, had a 2.0 rating.[41]

Kalpoe lawsuit (2006)

McGraw was named a co-defendant, along with CBS Television, in a 2006 lawsuit filed in relation to the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.[42] The lawsuit was filed by Deepak Kalpoe and his brother Satish Kalpoe, who claimed that an interview they did with McGraw, aired in September 2005, was “manipulated and later broadcast as being accurate, and which portrays Deepak Kalpoe and Satish Kalpoe ‘as engaging in criminal activity against Natalee Holloway and constitutes defamation.'”[42] The Kalpoe brothers claimed invasion of privacy, fraud, deceit, defamation, emotional distress, and civil conspiracy in the suit, which was filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court.[43][44]

Britney Spears “intervention” (2008)

In January, 2008, McGraw visited entertainer Britney Spears in her hospital room.[45] The visit by McGraw drew criticism from the Spears family and from mental health professionals.
The visit appeared to be part of an attempt at getting Spears and her parents to take part in an “intervention” on the Dr. Phil television show.[46] Immediately after the visit, McGraw issued public statements[47][48] about Spears’ situation that Spears’ family spokeswoman Lou Taylor said violated their family trust in McGraw. “This is another example of a trust being betrayed”, Taylor told Today co-host Meredith Vieira. “Rather than helping the family’s situation, the celebrity psychologist caused additional damage”, she said.[49] Several mental health care professionals criticized McGraw for his actions; however, fellow TV psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers defended McGraw.[50] It was reported that a psychologist filed a complaint with the California Board of Psychology (BOP), alleging that McGraw had practiced psychology without a license and had violated doctor-patient privilege by discussing Spears’ case with the media.[51] A copy of the complaint appeared in the media,[51] but there is no way to verify whether or not it was actually submitted to the BOP. The BOP does not disclose that information unless an investigation is opened.[52] Dr. Martin Greenberg, a former BOP President said on the Today Show that this incident was not a matter that the law covers or would be concerned about.[52]

Polk County, Florida controversy (2008)

On April 13, 2008, a producer for the Dr. Phil show secured $30,000 bail for the ringleader of a group of eight teenage girls who viciously beat another girl and videotaped the attack.[53] The teen had been booked at the Polk County, Florida jail on charges that included kidnapping and assault. Producers of the Dr. Phil show had made plans to tape a one-hour show devoted to the incident and had sent a production assistant to Orlando to help book guests for the show. However, when news broke that the Dr. Phil show producer had posted bail for the teen, the outcry caused the show to cancel their plans. “In this case certain staffers went beyond our guidelines,” said Theresa Corigliano, spokesperson for the Dr. Phil show. “We have decided not to go forward with the story as our guidelines have been compromised.”[54]

Riccio lawsuit (2008)

McGraw was sued by Thomas Riccio, the memorabilia collector responsible for taping the Las Vegas robbery that led to OJ Simpson being convicted. Riccio sued McGraw in Los Angeles Superior Court for defamation, fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress and false light for what Riccio claims to have been deceitful editing of the Dr. Phil Show on which he appeared in early October 2008.[55]

Approach to psychology

McGraw’s advice and methods have drawn criticism from some fellow psychotherapists as well as from some laymen. McGraw’s critics regard advice given by him to be at best simplistic, and at worst, ineffective.[56] McGraw said in a 2001 South Florida newspaper interview that he never liked traditional one-on-one counseling, and that “I’m not the Hush-Puppies, pipe and ‘Let’s talk about your mother’ kind of psychologist.'”[57]

Charitable foundation

McGraw announced the formation of the Dr. Phil Foundation, which raises funds to fight childhood obesity, on October 22, 2003. The Foundation also supports charitable organizations that help address the emotional, spiritual and monetary needs of many children and families.[58]

Personal life

McGraw’s first marriage was not publicized until a 2002 Newsweek cover story.[9] McGraw married his first wife, an ex-cheerleader and homecoming queen named Debbie Higgins McCall, in 1970, when he was 20 years old. According to her, McGraw was domineering and would not allow her to participate in the family business. She claimed that she was confined to domestic duties, which included lifting weights to improve her bustline.[59]

During the process of annulling the marriage in 1973, McGraw began dating a 19-year old who graduated a year late from high school the week before they met: McGraw was 23 years old at the time. [60] Robin Jo Jameson, whom he married three years later. After the McGraws’ first child Jay was born in 1979, she became a homemaker. In 1986, McGraw’s second child, Jordan, was born.[61]
McGraw’s son, Jay McGraw, has partially followed in his father’s footsteps, publishing books aimed at teenagers based on McGraw’s books and working for Stage 29. Jay McGraw became engaged to Erica Dahm, one of the famous Playboy Playmate triplets.[62] McGraw, who has been an outspoken critic of pornography, was best man at his son’s wedding, which was held at his home in Beverly Hills.[8]
McGraw is also a private pilot, with an instrument rating, flying single engine airplanes.[63]

Nathan Oliveira was an American painter, printmaker, and sculptor, born in Oakland, California to Portuguese parents died he was , 81. From the late 1950s on Oliveira has been the subject of nearly one hundred solo exhibitions in addition to having been included hundreds of group exhibitions, in important museums and galleries worldwide, including several Whitney Museum of American Art Annual Exhibitions. He taught painting for several decades in California commencing in the early 1950s when he taught in Oakland and then henceforth at Stanford University. Oliveira is considered to be one of the pioneers of the return to the figuration in American painting that originated in the California Bay Area in the 1950s. Along with various colleagues, Oliviera responded to Abstract expressionism in the mid-1950s by returning to imagery.

Artistic association

He was a member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement: a group of San Francisco Bay Area artists in the 1950s and 1960s who sought a return to figurative painting as a reaction to non-objective abstract painting. Other Bay Area Figurative School artists include Richard Diebenkorn, David Park, Elmer Bischoff, and later, Joan Brown, and Manuel Neri. Oliveira is also known as an outstanding printmaker who has executed many unique works in the monotype medium. He has exhibited his paintings in museums and galleries throughout the world.

Recent work

Oliveira was most recently at work on a series of paintings inspired the by Gerard Manley Hopkins poem “The Windhover,” a work which he had hoped would be permanently housed at a contemplative center planned for Stanford University and may still be.
Nathan was one of four artist in the `Ashes to Life: A Portuguese American Story in Art, which was published in English and Portuguese for the exhibit of the same name with artists Mel Ramos, Joao de Brito and John Matos in 2008.

Career

Allan R. Sandage was one of the most influential astronomers of the 20th century.[6] Sandage graduated from the University of Illinois in 1948. By 1953 he earned his Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology with the German observational astronomer Walter Baade as his advisor. During this time Sandage was a graduate student assistant to the famed cosmologist Edwin Hubble. Sandage continued Hubble’s research program after Hubble’s sudden death in 1953. Walter Baade’s 1952 discovery of two separate populations of Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda Galaxy, resulted in a doubling of the age of the Universe from 1.8 to 3.6 billion years, since Hubble had only considered the weaker Population II Cepheid variables as standard candles. Following this, Sandage showed that astronomers’ previous assumption that the brightest stars in galaxies were of approximately equal inherent intensity was mistaken in the case of H II regions which he found not to be stars and inherently brighter than the brightest stars in distant galaxies. This resulted in another 1.5 factor increase in the age of the Universe, to approximately 5.5 billion years[7]. Throughout the 1950s and well into the 1980s Sandage was regarded as the pre-eminent observational cosmologist. Sandage made seminal contributions to all aspects of the cosmological distance scale from local calibrators within our own Milky Way Galaxy to cosmologically distant galaxies.
Sandage began working at the Palomar Observatory. In 1958 he published[8] the first good estimate for the Hubble constant, revising Hubble’s value of 250 down to 75 km/s/Mpc, which is quite close to today’s accepted value. Later he became the chief advocate of an even lower value, around 50, corresponding to a Hubble age of around 20 billion years.
He performed photometric studies of globular clusters, and deduced that they had an age of at least 25 billion years. This led him to speculate that the Universe did not merely expand, but actually expanded and contracted with a period of 80 billion years. The current cosmological estimates of the age of the universe, in contrast, are typically of the order of 14 billion years. As part of his studies on the formation of galaxies in the early Universe, he co-wrote the seminal paper[9] now called ELS after the authors Olin J. Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell, and Sandage first describing the collapse of a proto-galactic gas cloud into our present Milky Way Galaxy.
In his paper of 1961 “The Ability of the 200-inch Telescope to Discriminate Between Selected World Models,”[10] he discussed the future of observational cosmology as the search for two parameters – the Hubble constant H0 and the deceleration parameter q0. This paper influenced observational cosmology for at least three decades as it carefully laid out the types of observational tests that could be performed with a large telescope. He also published two atlases of galaxies, in 1961[11] and in 1981,[12] based on the Hubble classification scheme.
In 1962[13] studied a possibility of directly measuring the temporal variation of the redshift of extra-galactic sources, an effect later called Sandage–Loeb effect.[14]
He is noted for the discovery in the M82galaxy of jets erupting from the core. These must have been caused by massive explosions in the core, and the evidence indicated the eruptions had been occurring for at least 1.5 million years.[15]
He was a prolific researcher with over 500 papers. Until his death he continued to be an active researcher at the Carnegie Observatories, still publishing several papers a year.[16]

Henryk Mikołaj Górecki was a composer of contemporary classical music died after a long illness. he was , 76. He studied at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice between 1955 and 1960. In 1968, he joined the faculty and rose to provost before resigning in 1979. Górecki became a leading figure of the Polish avant-garde during the post-Stalin cultural thaw.[3][4] His Webernian-influenced serialist works of the 1950s and 1960s were characterized by adherence to dissonant modernism and drew influence from Luigi Nono, Karlheinz Stockhausen,[5]Krzysztof Penderecki and Kazimierz Serocki.[6] He continued in this direction throughout the 1960s, but by the mid 1970s had changed to a less complex sacred minimalist sound, exemplified by the transitional Symphony No. 2 and the hugely popular Symphony No. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs). This later style developed through several other distinct phases, from such works as his 1979 Beatus Vir,[7] to the choral 1981 hymn Miserere, the 1993 Kleines Requiem für eine Polka[8] and his requiem Good Night.[9]

(December 6, 1933 – November 12, 2010)Until 1992, Górecki was viewed as a remote and fiery figure[10] known only to a few connoisseurs, primarily as one of a number of composers responsible for sparking a postwar renaissance in Polish music.[11] In 1992, 15 years after it was composed, a recording of his Third Symphony, Symphony of Sorrowful Songs—recorded with sopranoDawn Upshaw and released to commemorate the memory of those lost during the Holocaust—became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million copies and vastly exceeding the typical lifetime sales of a recording of symphonic music by a 20th-century composer. As surprised as anyone at its popularity, Górecki said, “Perhaps people find something they need in this piece of music […] somehow I hit the right note, something they were missing. Something somewhere had been lost to them. I feel that I instinctively knew what they needed.”[11] This popular success did not generate wide interest in Górecki’s other works,[12] and he pointedly resisted the temptation to repeat earlier success, or compose for commercial reward.
Apart from two brief periods studying in Paris and a short time living in Berlin, Górecki spent most of his life in southern Poland.

Early years

Henryk Górecki was born on December 6, 1933, in the village of Czernica (Silesian Voivodeship) in, Silesia, southwest Poland. The Górecki family lived modestly, though both parents had a love of music. His father Roman (1904–1991) worked at the goods office of a local railway station, but was an amateur musician, while his mother Otylia (1909–1935), played piano. Otylia died when her son was just two years old,[14] and many of his early works were dedicated to her memory.[15] Henryk developed an interest in music from an early age, though he was discouraged by both his father and new stepmother to the extent that he was not allowed to play his mother’s old piano. However, he persisted, and in 1943 was allowed to take violin lessons with Paweł Hajduga; a local amateur musician, instrument maker and chłopski filozof (peasant philosopher).[16]
In 1945, Górecki fell while playing in a neighbor’s yard and dislocated his hip. The resulting suppurative inflammation was misdiagnosed by a local doctor, and delay in proper treatment led to tubercular complications in the bone. The illness went largely untreated for two years, by which time permanent damage had been sustained. He spent the following twenty months in a hospital in Germany, where he underwent four operations.[17] Górecki continued to suffer ill health throughout his life and, as a result, said he had “talked with death often”.[18]

Emerging composer: Rydułtowy and Katowice

Between 1951 and 1953, Górecki taught 10- and 11-year-olds at a school outside of Rydułtowy, in southern Poland.[16] In 1952, he began a teacher training course at the Szafrankowie Brothers State School of Music in Rybnik, where he studied clarinet, violin, piano, and music theory. Through intensive studying Górecki finished the four year course in just under three years. During this time he began to compose his own pieces, mostly songs and piano miniatures. Occasionally he attempted more ambitious projects—in 1952 he adapted the Adam Mickiewicz ballad Świtezianka, though his work was left unfinished.[19] However, life for the composer during this time was often difficult. Teaching posts were generally badly paid, while the shortage economy made manuscript paper at times difficult and expensive to acquire. With no access to radio, Górecki kept up to date with music by weekly purchases of such periodicals as Ruch muzyczny (Musical Movement) and Muzyka, and by purchasing at least one score a week.[20]

The Academy of Music in Katowice where Górecki lectured from 1968

Górecki continued his formal study of music at the Katowice Academy of Music,[21] where he studied under the composer Bolesław Szabelski, a former student of the renowned composer Karol Szymanowski. As Górecki was later to follow, Szabelski drew much of his inspiration from Polish highland folklore.[10] Szabelski schooled his pupil in a neoclassical reading of counterpoint and motorics, during a period when Górecki was also absorbing the techniques of twelve-tone serialism.[22] He graduated from the Academy with honours in 1960.

Professorship

In 1975, Górecki was promoted to Professor of Composition at the State Higher School of Music in Katowice, where his students included Eugeniusz Knapik, Andrzej Krzanowski and Rafał Augustyn.[21]
Around this time, Górecki came to believe the Polish Communist authorities were interfering too much in the activities of academy, and described them as “little dogs always yapping”.[10] As a senior administrator but not a member of the Party, he was in almost perpetual conflict with the authorities in his efforts to protect his school, staff and students from undue political influence.[21] In 1979 he resigned from his post in protest at the government’s refusal to allow Pope John Paul II to visit Katowice[24] and formed a local branch of the “Catholic Intellectuals Club”; an organisation devoted to the struggle against the Communist Party.[10] He remained politically active through the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1991, he composed his Miserere for a large choir in remembrance of police violence against the Solidarity movement.[8]

Style and compositions

Górecki’s music covers a variety of styles, but tends towards relative harmonic and rhythmical simplicity. He is considered to be a founder of the so-called New Polish School.[25][26] Described by Terry Teachout, he said Górecki has “more conventional array of compositional techniques includes both elaborate counterpoint and the ritualistic repetition of melodic fragments and harmonic patterns.”[27]
His first works, dating from the last half of the 1950s, were in the avant-garde style of Pierre Boulez (b. 1925) and other serialists of that time. His compositions were not always well received by critics, in 1967 his “Refrain” was described by a British writer with the words, “players can bang and blow and scrape repeated notes as they wish. The experiment might better have been conducted in private.”[28]
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Górecki progressively moved away from his early career as radical modernist, and began to compose with a more traditional, romantic mode of expression. His change of style was viewed as an affront to the then avant-garde establishment, and though he continued to receive commissions from various Polish agencies, by the mid 1970s Górecki was no longer regarded as a composer that mattered. In the words of one critic, his “new material was no longer cerebral and sparse; rather, it was intensely expressive, persistently rhythmic and often richly colored in the darkest of orchestral hues”.[29]

Early modernist works

The first public performances of Górecki’s music in Katowice in February 1958 programmed works clearly displaying the influence of Szymanowski and Bartók. The Silesian State Philharmonic in Katowice held a concert devoted entirely to the 24-year-old Górecki’s music. The event led to a commission to write for the Warsaw Autumn Festival. The Epitafium (“Epitaph”) he submitted marked a new phase in his development as a composer,[11] and was described as representing “the most colourful and vibrant expression of the new Polish wave”.[30] The Festival announced the composer’s arrival on the international scene, and he quickly became a favorite of the West’s avant-garde musical elite.[29] Writing in 1991, the music critic James Wierzbicki described how that at this time “Górecki was seen as a Polish heir to the new aesthetic of post-Webernian serialism; with his taut structures, lean orchestrations and painstaking concern for the logical ordering of pitches”.[29]
Górecki wrote his First Symphony in 1959, and graduated with honours from the Academy the following year.[21] At the 1960 Warsaw Autumn Festival, his Scontri, written for orchestra, caused a sensation among critics due to its use of sharp contrasts and harsh articulations.[21][31] By 1961, Górecki was at the forefront of the Polish avant-garde, having absorbed the modernism of Anton Webern, Iannis Xenakis and Pierre Boulez, and his Symphony No. 1 gained international acclaim at the Paris Biennial Festival of Youth. Górecki moved to Paris to continue his studies, and while there was influenced by contemporaries including Olivier Messiaen, Roman Palester, and Karlheinz Stockhausen.[5]
He began to lecture at the Academy of Music in Katowice in 1968, where he taught score-reading, orchestration and composition. In 1972, he was promoted to assistant professor,[21] and developed a fearsome reputation among his students for his often blunt personality. According to the Polish composer Rafał Augustyn, “When I began to study under Górecki it felt as if someone had dumped a pail of ice-cold water over my head. He could be ruthless in his opinions. The weak fell by the wayside but those who graduated under him became, without exception, respected composers”.[10] Górecki admits, “For quite a few years, I was a pedagogue, a teacher in the music academy, and my students would ask me many, many things, including how to write and what to write. I always answered this way: If you can live without music for 2 or 3 days, then don’t write…It might be better to spend time with a girl or with a beer…If you cannot live without music, then write.”[32] Due to his commitments as a teacher and also because of bouts of ill health, he composed only intermittently during this period.[33]

Minimalism

By the early 1970s, Górecki had begun to move away from his earlier radical modernism, and was working towards a more traditional, romantic mode of expression. His change of style affronted the avant-garde establishment, and although various Polish agencies continued to commission works from him, Górecki ceased to be viewed as an important composer. One critic later wrote that “Górecki’s new material was no longer cerebral and sparse; rather, it was intensely expressive, persistently rhythmic and often richly colored in the darkest of orchestral hues”.[29] Górecki progressively rejected the dissonance, serialism and sonorism that had brought him early recognition, and pared and simplified his work. He began to favor large slow gestures and the repetition of small motifs.[34]

The “Symphony No. 2, ‘Copernican’, Op. 31” (II Symfonia Kopernikowska) was written in 1972 to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the birth of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. Written in a monumental style for solo soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra, it features text from Psalms no. 145, 6 and 135 as well as an excerpt from Copernicus’ book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium.[35] It was composed in two movements, and a typical performance lasts 35 minutes. The symphony was commission by the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York, and presented an early opportunity for Górecki to reach an audience outside of his native Poland. As was usual, he undertook extensive research on the subject, and was in particular concerned with the philosophical implications of Copernicus’s discovery, not all of which he viewed as positive.[36] As the historian Norman Davies commented, “His discovery of the earth’s motion round the sun caused the most fundamental revolutions possible in the prevailing concepts of the human predicament”.[37]
By the mid-1980s, his work began to attract a more international audience, and in 1989 the London Sinfonietta held weekend of concerts in which his work was played alongside that of the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke.[38] In 1990, the American Kronos Quartet commissioned and recorded his First String Quartet, Already It Is Dusk, Op. 62, an occasion that marked the beginning of a long relationship between the quartet and composer.[39]

Górecki’s most popular piece is his “Third Symphony“, also known as the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” (Symfonia pieśni żałosnych). The work is slow and contemplative, and each of the three movements is composed for orchestra and solo soprano. The libretto for the first movement is taken from a 15th century lament, while the second movement uses the words of a teenage girl, Helena Błażusiak, which she wrote on the wall of a Gestapo prison cell in Zakopane to invoke the protection of the Virgin Mary.[40]
The third uses the text of a Silesian folk song which describes the pain of a mother searching for a son killed in the Silesian uprisings.[41] The dominant themes of the symphony are motherhood and separation through war. While the first and third movements are written from the perspective of a parent who has lost a child, the second movement is from that of a child separated from a parent.

Later works

Despite the success of the Third Symphony, Górecki resisted temptation to compose again in that style, and according to Allmusic continued to work, not to further his career or reputation, but largely “in response to inner creative dictates”.[42]
In February 1994, the Kronos Quartet performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music four concerts honoring postmodern revival of interest in new music. The first three concerts featured string quartets and the works of three living composers: two American (Philip Glass and George Crumb) and one Pole (Górecki).[27]
His later work includes a 1995 commission for the Kronos Quartet entitled “Songs are Sung”, “Concerto-Cantata” (written in 1992 for flute and orchestra) and “Kleines Requiem für eine Polka”. Both “Concerto-Cantata” and “Kleines Requiem für eine Polka” (1993 for piano and 13 instruments) have been recorded by the London Sinfonietta and the Schoenberg Ensemble.[43] “Songs are Sung” is his third string quartet and was commissioned in 1992, and inspired by a poem by Velimir Khlebnikov. When asked why it took almost thirteen years to finish, he replied, “I continued to hold back from releasing it to the world. I don’t know why.”[44]

Personal life

He was married to Jadwiga, a piano teacher. His daughter, Anna Górecka-Stanczyk, is a pianist, and his son, Mikolaj Górecki, a composer.[45]

Death

During the last decade of his life, Górecki suffered from frequent illnesses.[46] His Symphony No. 4 was due to be premièred in London in 2010, by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, but the event was cancelled due to the composer’s ill health.[46][47] He died on November 12, 2010, in his home city of Katowice, of complications due to a lung infection.[48] Reacting to his death, the head of the Katowice Music Academy, Eugeniusz Knapik, said “Górecki’s work is like a huge boulder that lies in our path and forces us to make a spiritual and emotional effort”.[49]Adrian Thomas, Professor of Music at Cardiff University, said “The strength and startling originality of Górecki’s character shone through his music […] Yet he was an intensely private man, sometimes impossible, with a strong belief in family, a great sense of humour, a physical courage in the face of unrelenting illness, and a capacity for firm friendship”.[46]
Górecki had been awarded the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest honour, just a month before his death.[1] He received the award from Anna Komorowska,[50] wife of Polish PresidentBronisław Komorowski, in his hospital bed.[48]

Critical opinion

When placing Górecki in context, musicologists and critics generally compare his work with such composers as Olivier Messiaen and Charles Ives.[51] He himself said that he also feels kindred with such figures as Bach, Mozart, and Joseph Haydn though he has said he feels most affinity towards Franz Schubert, particularly in terms of tonal design and treatment of basic materials.[51]
Since Górecki’s move away from serialism and dissonance in the 1970s, he is frequently compared to composers such as Arvo Pärt, John Tavener and Giya Kancheli.[31][51] The term holy minimalism is often used to group these composers, due to their shared simplified approach to texture, tonality and melody, in works often reflecting deeply held religious beliefs. However, none of these composers has admitted to common influences. His modernist techniques are also compared to Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith and Dmitri Shostakovich.[27]
In 1994 Boguslaw M. Maciejewski published the first biography of Górecki, entitled Górecki – His Music And Our Times. It includes a great deal of detail about the composer’s life and work, including the fact that he achieved cult status thanks to valuable exposure on Classic FM. The serene Third Symphony (the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) became the focus of his incredible rise in popularity.
Discussing his audience in a 1994 interview, Górecki said,

I do not choose my listeners. What I mean is, I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will write for because you have to give the listener something and he has to make an effort in order to understand certain things. If I were thinking of my audience and one likes this, one likes that, one likes another thing, I would never know what to write. Let every listener choose that which interests him. I have nothing against one person liking Mozart or Shostakovich or Leonard Bernstein, but doesn’t like Górecki. That’s fine with me. I, too, like certain things.[32]

Górecki received an honorary doctorate from Concordia University, in Quebec, Canada. In a press statement, Concordia Professor Wolfgang Bottenberg described him as one of the “most renowned and respected composers of our time”, and stated that Górecki’s music “represents the most positive aspects of the closing years of our century, as we try to heal the wounds inflicted by the violence and intolerance of our times. It will endure into the next millennium and inspire other composers”.[52] In 2008, he received a further honorary doctorate from the Music Academy in Krakow. At the awarding ceremony a selection of the composer’s choral works was performed by the choir of the city’s Franciscan Church.[53]

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